Published: March 26, 2008 11:40 am         

USA-Soviet ice hockey this was not

It was the Bucky Waters play-in game, West Virginia vs. Duke, with the winner playing itself into the Sweet 16. Tomorrow night in Phoenix, beginning at 7 o'clock, those will be Mountaineers playing Xavier in the Sweet 16, not Blue Devils.

Fans who haven't seen either West Virginia or Duke play much this season, the fans who simply see the name of the school on the front of the jersey, have been calling this an upset since West Virginia was a No. 7 seed, and Duke was a No. 2. But this was no upset. Duke was seeded too high, and West Virginia is simply better.

Plus, if you want to look at recent history, in the past three years, West Virginia has advanced to the regional semifinals twice, Duke once.

That's not a rip at Duke. Duke had a good team this year and had an excellent season - 28-6 isn't excellent enough for you? Still, it was obvious through the course of the season this was a Duke team better suited for the long haul, but not the one-and-done postseason. The Devils live (28 wins) and die (see ACC tournament and the West Virginia game) on their three-point shooting. Most glaring of all in March is they have no inside game.

Nonetheless, it was a great win for West Virginia and came at a time when West Virginia could use some great news, the state still smarting over the departure of former football coach Rich Rodriguez, not to mention former basketball coach John Beilein, who beat Rodriguez to Ann Arbor by just 244 days.

Don't sell Beilein short, though, when you look back on Saturday's win against Duke and at this WVU season. He brought in good players, and they were brought to Morgantown to play his 5-out motion offense, not Bobby Huggins' dive and fill offense, which attacks the high post. Yet Huggins' style is a style easier adapted to by any kind of player, whereas players who are brought in for the sole purpose of playing his offense are less likely to be successful in Beilein's offense.

If you do not rebound, you do not play for Huggins, and rebounding, as Huggins is proving, can be coached in the weight room and on the court. Last year the Mountaineers couldn't have outrebounded the Smurfs because they wouldn't have bothered trying, the perimeter being their bread and butter. But once they took up residence and concentrated on the weights and the paint, they had a team that matched up beautifully against the perimeter team Duke has become.

Oddly enough, Saturday's game changed in West Virginia's favor because of West Virginia's guards, most notably the three-point shooting of Alex Ruoff, who put the game out of reach with an 11-point lead. Still, the fact remains the Mountaineers out-rebounded Duke 47-27 on Saturday, including a crushing 19 on the offensive end.

"I'm glad they didn't have a big guy to go down too, like they did in the past," West Virginia forward Wellington Smith said. "They had to rely just on their guards."

Where have you gone Shelden Williams? Duke Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Which brings us back to Mountaineer Nation and Huggins. A little over a year ago after Beilein had flown the coop, a large faction of Mountaineer fans were mortified by the thought of Huggins returning to WVU, where he graduated and was a two-time Academic All-American.

The university's image was taking a pretty good hit at the time with the news Pacman Jones and Chris Henry were creating, so the questioned begged: Why bring in Huggins? His players at Cincinnati didn't graduate and the off-court antics of both he and his players leave plenty to be desired for a school that's trying to project a better image than the one some of its famous football alumni are putting out there.

The response to that from these quarters was, "If they hire Huggins, a year from now when West Virginia is winning - and they will win - you'll be happy he's here."

It is now a year from now, and it's safe to say Mountaineers everywhere are happy Bobby Huggins has come home. The guy can flat out coach, which, of course, even his critics have known for a long time.

There was nothing absurd about how Saturday's West Virginia-Duke game turned out. The only absurdity to come out of Verizon Center on Saturday was what came out of the mouth of the boob who was doing the "expert" analysis for CBS, when he said something along the lines of, "Coach K's going to have to answer plenty of questions about the direction of this Duke program."

Most of you know you'll never find a Duke pity party taking place in this space, but what that guy said into an open microphone for all of the nation to hear might just be the dumbest sentence I've ever heard spoken.

Coach K has some splainin' to do? I don't think so. We're talking Duke here, and we're talking Mike Krzyzewski for goodness sakes. He has no questions to answer to anybody but himself if he so chooses.

Really, the only legitimate question to come out of the West Region bracket last weekend in Washington, is, How much deeper into March can West Virginia, led by its prodigal son, go?

After what will surely be a war in the paint tomorrow night against Xavier, a lot of folks could be surprised to find themselves believing the answer to that question might be "April."

Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.